THE GREEN MILE

Plot

Main themes

Charachters

Stephen King’s novels

Electric Chair: how it works

Death Penalty: what you don’t know about it

Quotations

The plotThe film is told in a flashback format and it begins with

Paul Edgecomb crying while he is watching top hat so he tells to her friend the reason why he is crying.

he was a corrections officer in charge of death row inmates at Cold Mountain Penitentiary during the summer of 1935.

One day, John Coffey, a giant black man convicted of raping and killing two young white girls, arrives on death row.

Meanwhile, a violent prisoner named "Wild Bill" Wharton (Rockwell) has arrived, to be executed for multiple murders committed during a robbery.

John reveals extraordinary powers by healing Paul's illness and resurrecting a mouse.

Percy Wetmore Instead of wetting the sponge used to conduct electricity and make executions quick and effective, he leaves it dry, causing the execution to malfunction dramatically. (during the execution of Eduard Delacroix)

John "takes back" the sickness in Hal's wife and regurgitates it into Percy, who then shoots Wharton to death and falls into a state of permanent catatonia.

Percy is then admitted to Briar Ridge Mental Hospital as a patient rather than an administrator.

Paul interrogates John, who says he "punished them bad men" and offers to show Paul what he saw. John takes Paul's hand and says he has to give Paul "a part of himself" in order for Paul to see what really happened to the girls.

Wharton is responsible for the crime for which John was convicted and sentenced to death.

John tells him that there is too much pain in the world, to which he is sensitive, and says he is "rightly tired of the pain" and is ready to rest. For his last request on the night before his execution, John watches the film Top Hat.

John is executed.

As an elderly Paul finishes his story he explains that he was 44 years old at the time of John's execution and that he is now 108. This is apparently a side effect of John giving a "part of himself" to Paul. Mr. Jingles, Del's mouse resurrected by John, is also still alive.

Paul believes his outliving all of his relatives and friends (including Elaine, who is shown to have died at the end of the movie) to be a punishment from God for having John executed.

Main themespunishment of an innocent

his goodness

misjudgements (ex. John is condamned and Percy despite he is mad he is not in prison or punished)

help

sense of guilt

violence in the world

Paul Edgcomb

Death row supervisor

Percyhe is spoiled, sadic and evil

He wants to take part to John’s execution

He kills Delacroix in a brutal way

John CoffeyHe is innocent

He has mystic powers

He wants to stop the sufferences of the world

The novelSerial novel written by Stephen King

Originally released in six volumes

Differences between the film and the bookIn the film the setting is changed from 1932

and 1935

In the book, the Green Mile is more emphasized as life; in the film seems to only refer to it as a penitentiary

In the film, Paul tells Elaine the story of the Green Mile; in the book, he writes his story down in the form of a novel

In the novel, Paul’s flashback is provoked by the sadistic employee Brad Dolan; in the film is provoked by a TV-movie

Electric chair: how it worksIt is used only in the United States

The convict is attached to the

chair with belts

Arms and legs are blocked

There are various cycles of current in

order to create lethal demages

From 1980 the electric chair has been replaced with the lethal injection, widely believed to be a more “human method”

Death Penalty: what you don’t know about it.There is a high risk to convict an innocent

person

Nobody believes that an innocent person can be executed

Before being executed a person could remain on the death row for 26 years

California will spend 1 billion dollars for capital punishment

Quotations

How come life in prison doesn't mean life? Until it does, we're not ready to do away with the death penalty. Stop thinking in terms of "punishment" for a minute and think in terms of safeguarding innocent people from incorrigible murderers. JESSE VENTURA, I Ain't Got Time to Bleed

We each owe a death — there are no exceptions. But, oh God, sometimes the Green Mile seems so long.

Created by:

Corsunov Julia

Pignat Marta

De Piero Lara

Pavan Sara